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The Museum’s Collections document the fate of Holocaust victims, survivors, rescuers, liberators, and others through artifacts, documents, photos, films, books, personal stories, and more. Search below to view digital records and find material that you can access at our library and at the Shapell Center.

Selma (nee Meyer) Heimann and her daughter Freidel (nee Heimann) Perl posing in a garden in Berlin. Freidel is pregnant with twin daughters.

Photograph | Photograph Number: 29894

Selma (nee Meyer) Heimann and her daughter Freidel (nee Heimann) Perl posing in a garden in Berlin. Freidel is pregnant with twin daughters.

Ellinor (now Eleanor) and Evelyn Perl, twin sisters were born in Berlin in 1938 to Ernst and Frieda (nee Heimann) Perl. The family fled to Lisbon via Paris and succeeded in sailing to the United States on board the SS Nyassa on May 25, 1941. They settled in New York where the girls attended a pre-school for Jewish refugee children.

Evelyn Perl is the daughter of Ernst Walter Perl and Frieda Felicie (nee Heimann/Heymann) Perl. Ernst was born on September 16, 1898 in a small town in Silesia and moved to Berlin with his family when he was a teenager. He had two siblings; one died in World War I and the other died from an accident before the Nazi rise to power. Frieda was born in Berlin on February 18, 1905 and had three brothers, Jean, Max and Arnim. Ernst and Frieda married in 1935 and stayed in Berlin where Ernst worked as an automobile salesman. In 1936, Arnim immigrated to South Africa, and the next year Frieda's father, Sigmund Heimann, died just as the Nazis were about to confiscate his large, prosperous business. In 1938 Jean died suddenly, supposedly of a heart attack, at the young age of 35. That year Frieda also gave birth to twin girls, Evelyn and Ellinor (now Eleanor Gerson). After Ernst was arrested (probably during Kristallnacht) and briefly incarcerated the family decided to emigrate. They fled to Lisbon via Paris and succeeded in sailing to the United States on board the SS Nyassa on May 25, 1941 and arrived in New York on June 13. There the girls attended a pre-school for Jewish refugee children. Back in Europe, Ernst's parents were deported to Theresienstadt where his father Siegfried perished. Siegfreid's wife, Marie, was sent from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz where she perished. Frieda's mother, Selma Heimann was deported on March 10, 1942 to Raval, Estonia where she was killed. Frieda's brother Max and his wife fled to The Netherlands, but were rounded-up and deported to Westerbork and then Auschwitz. Max perished but his wife Inge survived to reunite with their daughter Suzanne who survived in hiding.

Learn about over 1,000 camps and ghettos in Volume I and II of this encyclopedia, which are available as a free PDF download. This reference provides text, photographs, charts, maps, and extensive indexes.